Recently I had the chance to sit with a new mom, offering to hold her baby as she juggled her dinner, a diaper bag, a burp cloth and the stroller. I remember those days, because oddly and honestly they weren’t that long ago in the whole scheme of things for me.

I remember after Elly was born wondering if “normalcy” would ever come back to my world. The “fog” induced by fluctuating hormones, lack of sleep and so many people with needs I was supposed to meet left me crying in front of the canned soups one day at the grocery store. I felt crazy, and depressed and at a loss for the words to really express what was happening inside of me. It felt different than when the others kids had arrived, I was older and there were so many dynamics, and I couldn’t imagine what normal would feel like or how it could return for me.

Normal never returned, not really. Life was changed.

I felt different, no longer fitting with my friends who were only parenting teen agers, and not really fitting it in with the twenty-somethings mothering their newborns and toddlers. Finding women to relate to was difficult.

Connection based on life circumstances was not really a solid basis for growing friendship with me anymore. The friendships that weathered that season of my life were the ones that grew in deeper soil, where greater vulnerability was offered and received and the complexity of my world was welcomed and cared for with kindness, curiosity and creativity.

There have been other places of change, our move away from Texas and the circumstances surrounding it left me again wondering about “normal” and if it would come back. A new normal came and for 3-4 years we lived into it and enjoyed what felt like the beginning of something that would last a long time.

This year normal has taken a huge hiatus.

I don’t think its ever coming back.

Actually, what I know deeply and truly is that we will never be the same. I will never be the same.

There have been very obvious departures from normal and there has been a less obvious departure from normal for me as well. I have been quietly navigating the realities of peri-menopause.

It’s curious that the symptoms are strangely similar to the symptoms of post-partum. Sleepless nights, fluctuating hormones that leave you in a bit of a fog, the ten pounds you can’t just can’t seem to lose and the periods that just aren’t quite normal.

The same symptoms that show up after you’ve birthed life show up again signaling that you won’t be birthing anymore life.

I bled for three weeks this month.

Three weeks.

I’ve miscarried five babies, birthed five babies and been having my period for nearly 37 years. I feel quite familiar with the mechanics of blood loss.

And yet, day after day as the bleeding continued I wondered about my life…I know that probably sounds so dramatic…but its true. I wondered about this past year and about the future. I wondered about “normalcy” and if its ever coming back. I wondered about the fog and my forgetfulness and my tiredness and the extra pounds marking my mid section.

I wondered about the bleeding I’ve done in the past 37 years.

I’ve bled for a lot of life.

I’ve bled for a lot of death.

Either way, I’ve bled.

Here’s the thing….as women the first sign that we are life givers, that we can carry life inside of us is the presence of blood. Each month you bleed. After you give birth you bleed. When you miscarry you bleed. When you can’t get pregnant you bleed. And, when its nearly the end of your child-bearing years you bleed in a way that signals change, your body letting you know that it’s almost over and soon you won’t bleed anymore.

Something that has been part of “normal” is coming to an end and its not coming back.

Some days I really just want it over, really, I mean take my uterus now I don’t need it and it’s served me well. Other days I wonder about what else won’t be coming back, I am changing and there is loss in that.

While I certainly don’t care about the cessation of monthly bleeding and all that comes with it I also know part of the rhythm of my life is going to end. A marking of my days will stop. 28 days won’t matter anymore.

The physical reminder each month that I am a woman will no longer be present. I wonder if I will ever wish for it to come back. Perhaps. I know that the bleeding in my heart will continue. Where it bleeds for life and where it bleeds for death.

For what I do know, what has not been lost in the fog of fluctuating hormones, is that to be a woman is to bleed.

Tracy Johnson is a lover of stories and a reluctant dreamer, living by faith that “Hope deferred makes the heart sick but when dreams come true there is a life and joy” (Pro. 13:12). Married for 28 years, she is mother to five kids. After a half century of life, she’s feeling like she may know who she is. Founder of Red Tent Living, she writes here.nb

Dear Tracy, I love the words you chose to speak of our processes of blood as a woman. Your words are a comforting frame around that journey I’m mostly through called menopause. The questions about what you are losing and what you will be called to hold as we all age toward our going Home are questions my body is answering for me. There is comfort in knowing as a member of the community of women, we all face those questions together. Not the same answers for each of us, but places where we can connect and feel known and understood in this maze of body changes.

Dear Tracy,
Thank you for sharing your journey with us. As a woman who’s further ahead in this change process I’d like to prepare you for the joy that is up ahead. After the bleeding is over there is a precious freedom coming. While I thoroughly enjoyed birthing and raising the wonderful 4 children God gave me and sadly made tribute to the three that were never able to be held in my arms, the monthly uncertainty of “are we pregnant or not” is not missed. With the confidence that pregnancy is not a possibility comes an even deeper and freer joy in intimacy with my husband of now 45 years. Life changes and yet God has great plans for all of us. Plans to bless us and increase our joy even as we change. Wait for it! He loves you and the giving and nurturing heart you have.
In His Adventurous Love, Laura

Your words describe well the pain of changing relationships and the deep mystery of being a woman. I have often wondered if the hormones are God-given symptoms for what women do so well–compensate. I feel stirring to not despise the unpredictable mystery of our cycles. Thank you for your brave words.

Thank you for an honest invitation into the blood filled cycles of life and death…of what’s next in womanhood. I had to have an emergency total hysterectomy when I was 23. Artificial hormones were quickly prescribed so the season of “menopause” was short-lived. I have never thought about the losses of not moving through womanhood in the way you describe. Having started my periods at the age of 9 and very rarely having anything about them be normal was traumatic. As I read your process of bleeding for 3 weeks I remembered many years of bleeding for weeks at a time. My body never accepted that aspect of being a woman without a fight. Knowing my story as I do today I understand the war. I am thinking back to what life was intended before sin entered the story. Would women have experienced menopause? It seems unlikely because there wouldn’t have been death. And death is something I really don’t like pondering. You’ve invited me to do so in the midst of being thankful for life.

23, oh my so young for such a loss. Your words for your own journey feel both curious about your losses and honoring of the truth your body holds around them. Thank you for sharing with such vulnerability in your reply to me Annette.

dearest tracy, i well remember when my bleeding had taken on a life of its own sufficient to warrant a complete hysterectomy, you kindly observed, “how kind of god to give you a scar”……..i never look @ that scar without recalling those words and wondering how god would have me navigate this season of life which has been marked by so much blood and death……thank you for having guts to bleed out such honest words for us to ponder…

I love your picture of womanhood as she cycles through life…and yes there is blood only to be left with “a cavern of doom”…all life giving and life ending. Only God could trust a a woman with such pain, blessing and contradictions. Thank you!

Tracy, such a powerful and vulnerable post. Thank you. I have had next to no women in my life who have shared about life time changes. How I would love to hear more from older women so I can anticipate what is ahead for me. There seems to be an unspoken reality of not telling the younger ones how rough it gets. Thank you for doing this and getting a better conversation going. So much suffering we do in silence. So grateful you are alive, Tracy.

I haven’t had many women in my life share with me either Becky, and it feels like such a needed conversation. I hope Red Tent Living will continue to provide a space for those unspoken words between the generations. Grateful to have you here taking part it in all!

I feel a “flush” as I read your words this morning….I feel a sense of shame having not honored the seasons of my life that has taken and given so many days of joy and pain. Bleeding and Blessings……I want to offer myself some time to sit and ponder over the bleeding I have done.
Thanks Tracy for bringing those chapters of your life into the light for us !